Room With a View

One window hangs
in a brown frame
with a lavendar candle
and patchouli incense
on the sill to demarcate
my world.

Inside
everything is contained.
Words are stacked on discs,
warmth is preserved in walls.
I'm wrapped in a sweater
holding thoughts twisted
thread to bone, woven
under skin in knots of memory:

benches on Saturday morning,
bike rides, funeral black heels
picking over icy sidewalks,
stepping over cracks
while the river rolls sluggish
on a winter white
wedding day.

Inside
everything is contained.
Life is constructed
around cans of soup,
dishes and a hairbrush
hope spun on filaments
of fragile web silk.

Outside
nothing is contained
by the sky. The wind
whips snowdrifts on the deck,
raises them in foggy specters
that rise only to dematerialize
in ice dust, only to disappear.

This morning four crows
were wrought in pine branches
like sleek iron weathervanes.

I'm still here on my side
of the glass, but when doves
burst from under the barn,
the crows animated my frame
of reference
and flew away.